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Iraj How did you get into rap? I used to listen to a lot of Tupac, Snoop, a lot of West Coast music. Then I started playing keyboards, synthesizers. It’s not like there’s a place you can go to study. In those days it was hard to find even CDs. Were you into any other kind of music before you were making rap music? No, I always loved rap from a young age. I got into rap at like age 14. The reason I started making music was because of rap. Something I’ve noticed is that all of Sri Lankan rappers seem to be influenced by West Coast rap. We are influenced by West Coast rap. I think the reason for that is because of Tupac’s influence. Rappers like Krishan, they rap in Tamil and Sinhalese but they’re heavily influenced by Tupac. How did you start listening to Tupac? Music videos, I think. His music videos. He was amazing. I heard that you use old Sri Lankan folk song in your music? Yes. Folk songs, I use them in my music. And not only traditional music, I’ve done lots of remixes as well. Like the track “Aloke”, it was an old 50’s hit and I remixed it. It was number one here for like two months and it was released in India as well on a CD called “Bombay Bronx”. And it was number two on BBC Asian charts for seven weeks. Before that I had made a track with Ranidu called “Ahankara Nagare”. That song revolutionized the whole Hip Hop industry here in Sri Lanka. And that track was released under EMI. It was the first Sri Lankan track to be played on MTV in India. It was #1 in India as well. After that there was like loads of rappers here in Sri Lanka. A lot of new rappers came up because of that. You’re one of the pioneers of Sinhalese rap. Yes, I am. And before that I use to do a lot of English tracks. Do you want to know how Hip Hop started in Sri Lanka? The guy who started rapping here first, his name was Duggannarala D. He lives in Chicago now. He’s the one who introduced me to Hip Hop basically. He started a Hip Hop show on Sun FM with a US marine who was here. And that show got immensely popular. They would play a lot of Tupac and all kinds of new Hip Hop music. He was like one of the best rappers in Sri Lanka and he started promoting local music. He introduced Krishan, Urban Sound, and he would play Bathiya & Santhush. Then he had a whole crew called Rude Boy Republic with three people. There’s Shiraz, Duggannarala D and Aseef. He’s in England right now. They were very big too. We have a lot of respect for Ruki D. He’s really the one who started the Hip Hop movement in Sri Lanka. But he didn’t Rap in Singhalese. His show was big in mostly Colombo and Kandy, places like that. What I did was I mixed the authentic Sri Lankan sounds with Hip Hop and I started doing experiments. If you go to Katharaguma or Anaradupura now, Hip Hop is very big. In those days Hip Hop was only big in Colombo or Kandy, but now it’s everywhere. Go to Anuradhapura or go to Jaffna, they listen to our music. All the 3 wheel drivers are playing Rap. It’s very exciting. The key thing to introduce Sri Lankan Rap all over the world is to rap in our own languages, also use authentic Sri Lankan drums. Our country has so many different drums with very unusual drumbeats. Exactly, what we had here was Baila, Baila, Baila. Then Bathiya & Santhush came in like 1998 and they introduced Hip Hop mixed with Pop music. Also that was the time that we introduced Hip Hop. At that time it was English Hip Hop that we introduced, actually. We got a lot of recognition from BBC. Have you heard of DJ Nihal from BBC radio? He gave a lot of recognition. Then we went into Sri Lankan raps, we started to rap in Sinhala. Then I introduced Tamil Rap with Krishan. He’s like the pioneer when it comes to Tamil Hip Hop. It’s like we did the same thing that Tupac did over there. He was talking about Black people and their problems, so what Krishan did was he started talking about real life, the struggles among Tamils. Why did you decide to start doing Sinhalese or Tamil rap when nobody else was? Probably it was a risky situation for you. It was. Still I feel that I get lots of criticism from all the singing musicians. Because Hip Hop is really big, if you tune into the radio or TV they always play all these music videos. The youth, they love Hip Hop. I get criticized because they say that Hip Hop is not suited to our culture, Sri Lankan culture. It’s too bad because rap could really lead us to our tribal roots. Yeah, Rap was here in Sri Lanka a long time ago. It’s the music of our people from like a thousand years ago; it’s called Hitewana Kavi. Hitewana Kavi is basically rap. No beat, it’s a rap, with a normal tempo and you tell a story. It’s great to bring something new in to Sri Lankan music, but our own sound, not just a copy of American rap. Do you write a lot of your own lyrics? No actually Wasanthe Dugganna Rala, he’s the guy who writes a lot of my lyrics. He is a very powerful man. He has helped the Rap artists a lot. We have our own studio and I have a crew, the crew is called Ill Noise. He wrote my big hit, “Ahankara Nagare”. Wasanthe Dugganna Rala writes most of our lyrics. I saw that he has published a book too. Does he write for a lot of different rappers? Yes, his tracks are very famous. He has written for Chinthy and Bathiya & Santhush. I’ve heard that you do a lot of production? I’m mainly a producer, yes. I’m a producer and I’m a TV presenter. My TV show is #1 in Sri Lanka. It’s a Hip Hop show and I have my own radio show as well. You have two albums out right? Did you have other records before? I put out a couple of singles. My first album I had around five #1 hit’s. My second album out of 21 songs I had 8 #1 hits. The TV and the radio in Sri Lanka are very supportive of rap. They’re very supportive of the new music. How did you get the TV show going? I wanted to promote Hip Hop so it seemed to be a good option. It was a very new experience for me. I’m such a big fan of Hip Hop so I started the TV show to promote it. How is the club scene here? Do a lot of young people go to clubs to listen to your music? YFM had a show two months ago in Galkissa; there was more than ten thousand people there. It was amazing. Just go to youtube and type in Iraj, all the shows, all our music videos, they’re on there. Are you working on a new album right now? Yes, my new track is number one in Maldives. I actually signed up a new artist in the Maldives under Universal Music India; her name is Shani. We just finished that album and now we’re try to move in and do something in Malaysia, for the Tamil market. It’ll be like a hardcore, gangsta, Tamil rap album. Who is going to be on there? I will be producing and Krishan will be rapping with Bone Killa. We did an interview with Bone Killa for this issue too. Was he one of your rappers? Yeah, he works with me often. His album is coming out soon. He is on a lot of tracks with me. How would you describe yourself as a producer? Would you say you have an East Coast sound, Southern sound, or West Coast? Definitely not a Southern sound. I was a big Timbaland fan. I like DJ Clue, I like the tracks he did for Fabulous. It’s like a mix you know, a little bit of Dr. Dre. But personally as a Hip Hop fan I think that Timbaland is killing Hip Hop. His music is too commercial now. It’s not Hip Hop anymore and people are following him. He was a Hip Hop producer, but now he’s just making all this music for White people. I’m just saying this as a Hip Hop fan you know. Now he’s influenced by House and Trance music. What new upcoming artists from the U.S. are big in Sri Lanka? T-Pain is big over here. I know because I work for with the radio and TV stations and I travel a lot, going to Anuradhapura and all the villages. I do a lot of show everywhere. I look for new talent, my TV crew. I travel to all the schools. So I get to know what they like and what they listen to. T-Pain is big in Kandy and Colombo. Rappers? DJ Clue is famous. 50 Cent and Snoop are very popular. Everywhere you go they’re listen to Iraj and know who you are. Even in the remote villages. How did you cross over to the villages? I just have to say thank you Ruki D and thank you Dugganna Rala. It was basically Ruki D’s advice and Wasanthe Dugganna Rala’s lyrics and my music. And they love Hip Hop, and I’m a big fan, so I’m just doing it for Hip Hop. Where did you grow up, Iraj? Right here in Colombo, but I was studying in England for 5 Years. A lot of times when people go abroad they don’t come back. Why did you decide to come back to Sri Lanka? I went to study to do my degree. I passed, but education-wise I’m not that good. I just went to make my parents happy, because in Sri Lanka if you’re a musician they say, you have to study you have to do science or medicine or whatever. That’s their mentality but that’s changed now, I think. So I was studying there and I started DJing and I was a pretty good DJ. I met a lot people and went to a lot of concerts. Like Jazzy Jeff, I went to his show and I was amazed. Then I started buying drum machines, thing like that. When I came back to Sri Lanka I had already been making Hip Hop. Do you think someone could come and make a whole hardcore rap album in Sinhalese? Like an NWA style rap album, do you see that happening? Not now. Maybe in a few years. But it could happen. Like at first we were rapping in English, but now everybody is rapping in Sinhalese or Tamil. Like Chinthy, his first song was about weed. It was called “Mal” which means flower, but here mal is weed. That track was huge over here. It was banned on some stations, but it was just huge. I produced that track. Here when people talk about weed they call it mal (flowers). They are all saying this flower is so good or it is beautiful, but they’re really talking about weed. Where else in Asia is rap really popular? In Malaysia Tamil Rap is very big, it’s huge. Not so much in India, they’re more into movie music, but it’s growing. But rap is bigger here in Sri Lanka. At first rap was only coming from Kandy and Colombo, but now do you see it coming from all over. Slowly, slowly but more and more every day, definitely. Last year I heard a rapper in Anuradhapura and he sounded like Bone Thugs N Harmony but in Sinhala. You go to villages and kids are wearing 50 Cent t-shirts. It’s definitely everywhere now.
Yeah, also you can check website www.irajonline.com. M TV show can be seen.
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